Expert on Violence to Lecture at Smith College

Dr. James Gilligan, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and renowned researcher and lecturer on violence and the prevention of violence, will give a lecture on that topic at the Smith College School for Social Work on Saturday, July 24, at 7:30 p.m., in Wright Hall Auditorium.

Gilligan's lecture, titled "Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic," is part of the School for Social Work's 1999 Summer Lecture Series.

Gilligan, who is the former medical director for the Bridgewater (Mass.) State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and former clinical director of Mental Health Services for the Massachusetts prison system, has written and lectured extensively about violence during his 30 years on the Harvard Medical School faculty. He is the author most recently of a book with the same title as his Smith lecture and is an advisory editor of the "Encyclopedia of Violence in the United States," to be published this year. In 1991, he delivered Harvard University's Erikson Lectures on "The Root of Violence."

During his lecture, Gilligan will discuss the origins of violent acts and strategies that might be employed by health care practitioners, therapists and social workers to prevent violence from erupting. "In order to prevent violence, practitioners need to understand that violence is not only an individual act, it is also familial, societal, and institutional, in that each of these institutions shapes and impacts the individual," says Gilligan. "This presentation considers the tragedy of violence as it involves not only the victim but the victimizer as well. It will also address violence as impacted by poverty, race, and gender."

Gilligan has served as a consultant on the causes and preventative methods of violent behavior and the psychology of crime and punishment to governments and non-governmental organizations in North and South America, Europe and Israel. He was an advisor for the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, the American Bar Association (Juvenile Justice Center) and Senior Law Lords of the House of Lords in England.

Gilligan's talk is the ninth installment of the School for Social Work's 12-part lecture series. All series events are free and open to the public. The Smith College School for Social Work, which was founded in 1918, enrolls 450 students each year in master's and doctoral programs

July 15, 1999